The Super Bowl was mercifully mostly kneel-free, with the exception of Eminem’s genuflection during his halftime performance. The gesture was approved by the NFL, which had observed the rapper’s rehearsal. Kneeling as a political statement was popularized by perennial free agent Colin Kaepernick, as the multi-millionaire sought to protest the nation that made him a multi-millionaire.
A middling player by most accounts, the troublemaker was unsurprisingly not picked up after his contract with the San Francisco 49ers expired in 2016. In 2018, sportswear giant Nike signed on Kaepernick as the face of the 30th-anniversary iteration of their iconic “Just Do It” ad campaign. The text across Kaepernick’s face read “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything,” a reference to the belief that the multimillionaire was being punished for his obnoxious political theater by remaining unsigned in the NFL.
Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything. #JustDoIt pic.twitter.com/SRWkMIDdaO
— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) September 3, 2018
Also in 2018, over in China, the CCP had interned between one and three million Uyghur ethnic minorities in labor camps. According to a Center for Global Policy report, of those, a massive number is literally being forced to pick cotton by hand.
The evidence shows that in 2018, three Uyghur regions alone mobilized at least 570,000 persons into cotton-picking operations through the government’s coercive labor training and transfer scheme. Xinjiang’s total labor transfer of ethnic minorities into cotton picking likely exceeds that figure by several hundred thousand. Despite increased mechanization, cotton picking in Xinjiang continues to rely strongly on manual labor. In 2019, about 70 percent of the region’s cotton fields had to be picked by hand – especially the high-quality long-staple cotton predominantly grown in southern Xinjiang’s Uyghur regions, where mechanized picking shares are low.
Activists like Colin Kaepernick love to invoke the specter of centuries-old American slavery as they decry their despised homeland. Yet over its entire history, the United States enslaved fewer than 400,000 souls total; today, in China, there are over twice that many slaves picking cotton in the fields, and who knows how many more laboring away in sweatshops.
Nike, of course, is a major buyer of Chinese cotton and labor. (They claim to have made some efforts towards diminishing their slavery footprint since the ad campaign came out.)
In 2019, the Nike ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick won an Emmy for Best Commercial.
Related: Rubio: John Kerry Is Making Money Off Chinese Slave Labor
Last year, poor, discriminated-against Colin was able to make ends meet by creating a series for Netflix called Colin in Black and White. (Get it?) NPR said, in a review, that the series “delivers its message with storytelling subtle as a sledgehammer.”
Kaepernick sets the tone early, speaking ominously while visual images morph from Black professional athletes examined by white coaches and team doctors to slaves getting a once over from white men selling them at auction.
“What’s being established is a power dynamic,” says Kaepernick, clad in all black, pacing through the frame. “Before they put you on the field, teams poke and prod and examine you. Searching for any defect…no boundary respected. No dignity left intact.”
Inside Edition covered Colin’s tacky creative overreach:
Commenters on YouTube were not amused.
“For a lot of people it’s a life long dream to be in the NFL. Nobody’s life long dream was to be a slave. NFL players make millions of dollars and live the type of life most people can only dream of,” said one.
“Kaepernick: ‘Slavery is bad.’ Also Kaepernick: does ads for Nike, a company that relies on slave labor,” pointed out another.
Right now, the Winter Olympics are being hosted in Beijing, drawing the world’s attention to China. The subject of Uyghur enslavement and genocide has come to the forefront.
What an impact African American athletic stars like Colin Kaepernick, along with Nike alum such as Serena Williams and LeBron James, could make, if they were to take a stand against modern-day slavery at this moment. It’s black history month, the world’s biggest athletic event is underway in China, and China actually forces enslaved minorities to go out in the fields and pick cotton by hand. Just a few months ago, Kaepernick made it clear that he’s specifically against making slaves pick cotton. Would it be such a stretch for him to post a quick video on social media, saying the same thing? Isn’t he celebrated for his courage in speaking out against injustice?
Or maybe the enslavement of cotton-picking field hands is okay sometimes, after all.
